The Final Countdown
by Zilkenian
Summary: As long as his brain works, I'll bring him back... (Set after "La vie en rose")


**This is set after my other story "La vie en rose", so if you want to fully know what's going on, you should read that one before. If not, this story can work on it's own as well.**

**I hope you enjoy it.**

...

I couldn't imagine that someone would die in such peace as that boy. As he closed his eyes for the last time, he kept singing "La Vie en Rose" and smiling, and all I could do was to curse myself for not having more charge for the medigun.

Heavy is with me, looking at the corpse of what was our Scout, lying on my medical table. Although the boy was a pain at best, losing him is the most frustrating thing I've felt since I entered in this war. I may have been a cruel doctor whit those around me, but I never lost one man, not even send him to Respawn.

My pride shatters like my soul, seeing how I lost the youngest of our team, being unable to bring him back from the death. Preparing more charge for the medigun wouldn't do a thing now. I take away all the instruments I used to try to save him, and Heavy retires and sits on a chair nearby, looking at the ground. I don't need to read his expression to know what's going on through his head.

His fate could be ours at any moment.

Once I take everything away, with the sorrow filling my very core for the realitzation of everything, I gently take the corpse in my arms, not caring if I get stained with the blood, and then think: where? Where should I take him now? Should I bury him? Try to send him back to his family?

I look down at his face. The smile is gone, replaced with what looks the calmest expression I've ever seen on him. I sigh, and start walking out of my infirmary, but before I take two steps, I realize I left a cord still attached to his head, monitorizing his brain activity. An invent of mine and Engineer, created so I could monitorize my patient's brain activity while I was performing experiments on them...  
Of course, the line must be...

"Beep"

I see the monitor and can't believe what I'm seeing. Even thought the heart is stopped, the brain still has a small fight inside; a fading beep in the line shows it, but he's losing the fight. I set him back onto the table. Heavy looks surprised at me, but he doesn't move.

I must save at least the brain...that's where he is.

I take all the blood of his type or compatible I have around, and I quickly prepare everything to attach the wires into his neck. A machine will be the improvised new heart, and it'll pump and clean the blood, so his brain can live until I can bring him back to life, as well as the rest of his organs.

I start the machine, and I see how the blood is subministred into his head. The body does the rest, and takes the blood everywhere. His lungs don't work, and his heart is no longer necessary, but his brain starts to show a bit more of activity: he stopped losing the fight.

I sigh with content, and Heavy comes closer to us. He looks at Scout, lying on the table, with the device attached into his neck, and then looks at me.

"Doktor saved leetle man..." I look at him and nod. "Yes Herr Heavy, I saved him...but I still must do a lot of zhings to bring him back...zhis is only temporary: he needs a proper new heart" I say, looking down. Heavy looks down as well, smiling for all I can see.

I set Scout on my bed, and Heavy helps me with the device, and then we go outside again, to fight against the robots once more.

…

It's been a week since that happened. The fight is getting harder, and every day feels like it's going to be the last.

But as I get into my improvised infirmary, I look down at Scout, who's still alive thanks to my device, and smile. There's hope after all in this fight, even if it's to save a young man's life. I'll make the inevitable happen, and then I'll be able to heal everyone else, and maybe one day, this fight will end.

I kneel down next to the bed and look at him, smiling. "Look at you: you always were the pain that would never shut up, and here you are, living thanks to a miracle I created..." of course, he can't hear me, or answer, but the monitor shows his brain is still active.

I put a finger on his forehead, and then the whole hand. His temperature dropped, but that's because the body is not exactly alive, but not dead.

I stand, and go towards my other devices and tools: today it's been a long day. Heavy got almost killed by two robots, but I managed to keep him alive with a new device I'm trying. It's some sort of medigun, but it shoots needles filled with a compound that makes the body regenerate: like the medigun, but faster and more painful, because it must be stabbed into the patient.

But at least allows them to survive and get healed. I take one of the needles, and look at Scout. There's no need to use it on him: his body is not injured, just waiting. And I'll bring him no matter what, and then I'll make him pay me for this: maybe I'll make him clean my laboratory? Yes, that would be perfect.

And he'll be angry about it, but he won't complain, because I saved his life. And I'll smile.

Yes, I'll smile.

…

We lost Soldier today.

I couldn't save enough pieces to even make a full body. Thanks to Demoman, who created a huge explosion to allow us to escape, the rest is alive. I go into my infirmary, devastated. I lost another one. Heavy is with me, looking down as well. I can feel his hand on my shoulder, and I look at him.

He's trying to help me, to assure it wasn't my fault. But as I enter in my infirmary, I see Scout on my bed. I smile, tired and sad. At least there's still hope for one of us.

"How is leetle man doing?" asks Heavy. I look at him "His brain activity is stable, and my machine is doing a good job with zhe blood: it's keeping him alive, but..."

"But?" asks Heavy. I look down, sighing "I'm afraid zhe body is depending too much on zhe device; who knows if he'll be able to live again with a new heart..."

Heavy smiles at me "I'm sure Doktor will bring leetle man back" I smile at him, thankfull: yes, I'll bring him back.

He's one of the things that's keeping me sane in all this madness. "Come, we need to eat something and rest, it's been a long day" Heavy nods, and we leave the infirmary...

…

I run inside my infirmary. Everything is crazy! CRAZY! The fight is a madness now. Two weeks later and we are still fighting those damn machines!

THEY WILL NEVER STOP!

Heavy is preparing something for me, because I had a breakdown today. We lost Pyro and Sniper, both of them, and my device couldn't bring them back. No matter how many needles I gave them, their bodies wouldn't come back!

I'm so mad I could destroy all those robots right now! But as I look around me, I find him on the bed.

"You're lucky to be in that state...you don't have to live through all this..." I put a hand on my face. I'm sweating, and nervous, and I feel like choking on nothing. I go closer to him, taking a chair with me. I sit down next to him, looking at his face. He looks like he was sleeping, but he's not. He's dead. I'm keeping a corpse alive just because I couldn't accept the fate of losing someone...but I've lost three.

I look at the device. Maybe I should give him the peace he deserves. I'm keeping the soul out of pure selfishness...

I'm about to stop the machine, when I see how thin he has become. I guess death is not nice with...wait...THIN?

I stop, and look at him. He's thinner than before, which means...his body is burning fat. His body is working...

I quickly take my tools, and call for Heavy. He comes inside my infirmary quickly, and I ask him to help Scout back onto my medical table. I quickly start my work: I take some extra cords, and connect the device right into Scout's heart, taking away the ones from his neck. I sew muscle and skin, leaving the machine work with the heart, which is still alive, but not working; it's just not working!

With Heavy's help, I set him back onto the bed, and cover him. I attach the nutrients his body needs into a vein in his arm, and cover him. Heavy looks at me, confused, and after some time, I look back at him.

"He's alive...and I'll bring him back..."

…

The fight is still going on, but it seems the robots are losing interest in us. We already lost Demoman and Spy, and I can feel myself losing my mind. I tried to build a device like the one Scout is attached to to save someone else, but their brains, most of the time, were too damaged. Scout died of blood loss, but his brain was perfectly fine: the rest...can't say the same.

I almost saved Spy, when I realized the blood was flooding his skull, and his brain was collapsing. Saving the heart would have done nothing, since without brain, there's no person.

I had to leave behind so many men...only four of us are still here, and one is barely alive.

Engineer saw what I'm doing with our young teammate, and he decided to help me do a mini version of the device, so Scout can use it as a heart at full time. His heart can't be restored: while being alive, it was stopped, and the muscle got weaker as the time went on: now is just a piece of useless flesh. And I'll have to change it for a mechanic heart.

While Engineer is working in the new mechanic heart, I sit down next to Scout. His skin still is pale, but I can see my device is sending blood everywhere in his body. Maybe I can make his lungs work with the new metallic heart. Yes, I'll have to do that.

I pat his head gently; I know he can't feel it, but I don't care. I don't know when I became so attached to him, but now he's one of my main concerns. Maybe because he's the only one I could save? Maybe...

I don't know...

…

The fight stopped...

Kind of abruptly...

But too late to save Engineer's life...

Heavy is with me, in my infirmary. The robots stopped coming, since we're not a thread anymore. I guess they'll focus on anything more important than us. I don't care anymore...I don't care for anything...

They protected me until the very last breath, but I couldn't bring a single one of them...

"Doktor...what should we do now?" Heavy is looking at me, and I can see him desperate, confused, lost...sad...everything. I look down, unable to answer that. We can't just go outside and live our life like nothing happened.

Then I notice a small box on my medical table. I go towards it, and read the small note that comes with it.

My heart skips a beat.

"Here's the device you wanted. I managed to finish it before our battle today. Just bring that young man back to life, will you?

Engie"

I look at the note in my shaking hand. I cover my face with my other hand. I can feel my mind breaking down, as I kneel down on the floor. I feel tears running down my face, but I don't care.

Heavy comes running towards me, kneeling down beside me, putting his both hands on my shoulders. I look at him, and he does something I never thought he would do: he hugs me.

I know some would think is wrong, but in this situation, we don't care. We are the last one of a group of amazing men, who fought until the very last breath. We can be proud of what we did.

Heavy helps me to stand up, and I open the box. Inside there's a device that looks like a heart.

Describing it in full detail would be too hard, but it has everything I need to make Scout's body work properly.

I try to calm myself down: this operation will be very hard to do, and very important. One little mistake, and all what we did will be for nothing...

Yes...I'm sure of what I'm about to do...

With Heavy's help, we put Scout back onto the medical table. I start the operation, keeping the device working while installing the new heart, so the blood can still run through the body. I take his heart out, leaving it on a table nearby, and I take the mechanic heart. I slowly connect it to the main veins and arteries, changing the cords coming from the device for the ones coming from the new heart.

Once it's fully connected an attached, I start sewing everything back into it's place, while connecting the new heart to a batery I have nearby, to charge it. Lucky for Scout, Engineer covered the new heart with a non conductive material, so the electricity doesn't damage the body. There's a small connection to outside of the skin, so he can recharge the heart every now and then.

Engineer left some instructions inside the box: the heart can work on it's own for a month, since it doesn't take a lot of energy to work, but every month must be fully charged, or it will stop.

That's much better than what I expected.

But when I'm about to finish the operation, there's an explosion outside: the robots are back. It seems I was wrong about them not caring about us: they want us all dead.

Heavy quickly takes his minigun, and look at me.

"Doktor finishes operation and brings leetle man back; Heavy will fight"

Before I can stop him, he runs out of the infirmary. I focus back on Scout: the new heart is being charged, and I put an oxygen mask on his mouth and nose, to make his lungs respond to the new heart, which is already working.

At some point, the diaphragm reacts with the movement, and the lungs start working again. Well, that's another miracle right there: either that, or the lungs already tried to work when the device was attached to his old heart.

The gunfire is getting close, and I'm worried about Heavy. The mini screen of the mechanic heart shows a countdown, which is how much it needs to be fully charged.

It says 30 seconds. I grab my coat, and my needles. That time is all I need to reach Heavy and, at least, protect Scout while he fully comes back to life. I go out of the infirmary, counting the seconds in my head, and I find Heavy on the corridor: he's injured in several places, so I run towards him, and stab him with one of my needles. His wounds heal faster than usual, and we retreat, while he keeps firing. The robots are still coming, but they're slowed down by Heavy's bullets.

15

I take the gun Heavy gives to me, and start shooting at the robots that escape from Heavy's bullets. After all we've done, I'm NOT going to let them reach Scout...

10

I think Heavy is thinking the same, for he keep shooting every single one of them. I take any bullets I find around us, and give them to him, so he can keep shooting. We're walking back.

5

We're near the infirmary's door.

4

I put several crates over the door, while Heavy is still firing, hiding it.

3

I give Heavy another needle, ahealing his injuries, but I notice I'm injured as well.

2

It's almost there...

1...

I feel a piercing pain in my chest. A bullet went through me, damaging my lung. I fall backwards, as Heavy looks at me, horrified. I smile, and coughing, I say:

"Zero..."

The final countdown is done. Scout will probably wake up soon, and he'll probably think what he's doing in that room, all alone. Heh...maybe he'll...

…

Scout opens his eyes once the count reaches zero, and looks around him. He doesn't recognize the room, and he feels really weak. He hears loud noise outside, and the yelling of a man. He can't recognize him, and all he does is sitting on the metal table he's on. He notices the wire attached to his chest, and a note that reads "Read me".

He takes the note, reads it, and then touches his chest. Takes out the wire, puts on a shirt that finds around, and keeps the note in the pocket of his pants. The noises are dying outside, and at some point, there's only silence.

He goes towards the door, slowly, and opens it. The first thing he sees is a lot of crates in front of him. He pushes them out of the way, and what he sees confuses him even more.

Two corpses on the ground, one of a large man with an enormous gun, and the other of what looks like a doctor.

He doesn't know why, but he can't help but feel sad for them. Scout looks at them for some seconds, before going to explore the rest of the building he's in. At some point, he finds water and some food, and he eats and drinks slowly, feeling relieved.

While eating, he sees a mirror, and takes the chance to see himself. Still, he doesn't recognize the face that looks back at him in the reflection, but he smiles anyway. Taking some more food and water, he goes outside through the back door of the infirmary, singing a melody that, he doesn't why, he remembers; and the only sentence that comes to his mind from that song is:

"Je vois la vie en rose..."


End file.
